Black as Your Soul...

Once upon a a very long time (four years) ago, in Fresno, California I was a 20 year old girl standing outside the local philharmonic concert hall...


Nine Inch Nails was launching its first album and tour in over six years, and lined up outside the venue was a sea of black. Black hoodies, Tool shirts, band merchandise, and more black eyeliner than a MAC counter, spread as far as the eye could see. And there I stood 3000 miles from home, waiting to get into a show to see a band who made synthesizers, industrial beats, self-loathing, and singing about doing creepy stuff with animals new again. I was the girl in green, dark green mind you, unwilling to give into the peer pressure of safety-pinning messages to my clothes and smearing my makeup to show the world that I was hardcore enough to hear Trent Reznor screaming about drug abuse and cutting himself.

Amazingly enough, directly behind me, were two guys in non-skinny jeans and college Tshirts that, dare I say it, looked comparitively normal? As I was, and still am prone to doing, I eavesdropped on their conversation, and what followed was something I remember to this day:

"You know I don't think I really belong here anymore...I just don't think I'm as angry as I used to be. "

It was a rather innocuous comment, but in a sea of people who were pumped up and chanting, "Head like a hole, black as your soul, I'd rather die, than give you control," it wasn't the sentiment I was expecting. It resonated with me though, because while I'd never been the goth queen, and parts of NIN terrified me, I had enjoyed the music but never felt like it was my scene. To be frank, I never had enough of that anger inside of me, but I was too young or to determined to realize that at the time. For years I had been writing scathing editorials and opionated columns in my high school newspaper, and without that outlet in college, I had channeled my predilection to rant into angry people music.

But the fact of the matter was, it wasn't me.

And if I'm honest, neither is the title of this blog.

A Redhead Rants

Yes, I am a redhead, yes I am heavily opionated, and yes I have been moaning and groaning about my albeit-not-that-badlot in life. However if there is one thing this blog has taught me it's that while I've got miles to go before I become, or even figure out, "Who I Want to Be," holding onto the anger of the down-in-the-dumps twenty-something isn't helping me. I took this angle for my blog because I am struggling to figure out what to do with myself, and I was frustrated with the fact that I have lived my life as a series of steps in which everything I have done was to prepare me for what comes next. Right now I'm on a plateau, with no real sign of what to do or where to go, so all I can do is move forward.

To keep walking and hope I am heading in the right direction.

And I can do that with the steadfast knowledge that whatever I am standing on has a steadfast foundation. Through all my ranting and uncertainty in this blog, I've learned that the ability to even express myself in this way means that I'll be ok and it will work out. I have a family that loves and supports me; always has and always will. I have a good education and the means to keep pursuing it. Moreover, as much as a I complain that it's not what I want, I have a job, which is more than a lot of people can say in this economy.

So now it's four years later, and I'm heading into the middle of my twenties, and I'd sooner repeat high school than stand in line to listen to a band tell me how much life sucks. I can read the newspaper or talk to my friends to know that. I still have flashes of abject irritation, but it rarely stays hot enough to channel into a scathing commentary. Instead it slips away into weariness or is forgotten as soon as my head hits the pillow.

That might mean I'm giving in and growing up, succumbing to the man, the world, and all the ways it gets you down.

But really?

I'm just not that angry anymore.

Besides, look around. Pink's more my color.

Lend Me Your Ears and I'll Sing You a Song...

Two redheads, two brunettes, and an almost-dirty-blonde walked into a Starbucks. Bundled into pea coats and brightly colored scarves, they purchased their overpriced lattes, Earl Grey, and chai and traipsed up overly narrow stairs to find seating. The 22-24 year olds huddled around tables large enough only for mice to eat upon and sat in chairs built for third graders while they tried to catch up after a two month absence. It wasn't a long amount of time in the grand scheme of things, certainly they'd stretched out their social visits for far greater spans in the past. But the Thanksgiving holiday weekend allowed those tucked up in their NYC grad schools a chance to come home and gave the rest an excuse to dig out time for their friends in their busy lives.

What followed was at first glance a lovely Black Friday afternoon, sequestered in a cozy coffee house with hot drinks and good friends. In truth it was the bleak reality of five people who graduated in a nasty economy struggling with a distinct lack of money and very uncertain futures. The usual questions of "how are you?" "what's new?" were answered with groans, frowns, and large inhalations of breath before long stories explaining the latest frustrations. Easy laughter and clever anecdotes that would normally pass at sitcom speed were decidedly lacking from the whole affair. Instead of the camaraderie of the combined potential of a group of people who had rarely known anything besides success, they shared coping methodologies for dealing with feeling as if all the steps they had taken in their lives now meant very little.

Rewind three years past to another gathering, around a far larger larger English oak table, in a pub furnished in the same warm wood paneling, and replace the overpriced hot designer drinks with arguably still warm and overpriced pints. The service was nonexistent, the night was bitter cold, and the pea coats hung nearby. Neither of the two couples were engaged yet; their relationships were still in the realm of infinite possibility where they could either flourish or dwindle. All of their lives were hinged on that cusp, and if their cheeks were lit with a rosy glow, the potential of their futures was as much to blame as the rapidly diminishing ale. Only their glaringly obvious American accents amidst a sea of British voices made their table stand out from any other. In the small out-of-the-way Oxford pub, so many historic figures had sat in those same booths that to mention them was considered redundant. Laughter and lewdness echoed off the walls as the tables filled with students let off steam as they neared the end of term. The then four brunettes, one redhead, and the two almost-dirty-blondes had never worked so hard in their lives, but neither had they ever been more sure of their success.

Not once did it occur to them, in their fresh faced and big-brained naivete that their impending graduation in the next year would not produce their desired results. Visions of boomeranging back home as an engaged couple due to apartment bug infestations, of answering phones and being administrative assistants, or the concept of a combined debt the price of an average family sized home never once crossed their minds. Now it was a reality and the crush of adulthood cynicism had washed across them, making them jaded before they even hit 25. Some of it was the economy and the dearth of jobs. Some of it was the impracticality of vague dreams of great apartments, careers making a difference, and the storybook idealism of having it all. None of it though, was what they thought it would be.

Their afternoon lingered on and eventually the tides turned to lighter fare. Stories were shared of the engaged couples' new kittens, their starter children for the apartment-dwelling-never-home young adults. Wedding plans and woes volleyed across the table as they discussed bridesmaid dresses, bad photographers, and an early start to in-law horror stories. The mood softened and a new bond began to form far separate from the old. Gone were the days of reminiscing that unforgettable semester abroad that brought such unlikely friends together. A foreign feel of maturity that none of them would have suspected overcame them while they chatted. In their uncertainty they could relate even as they each went in different directions, at times all as unhappy as the other. Surrounded by the people who shared in their moment of unrivaled achievement, they found support, they could see that they weren't alone. For all their plans and goals it was the knowledge that in their little microcosm there were others with untapped potential who were moving forward with no clear idea of what would await them.

Around that small table they unknowingly met for the first time as grown-ups. They were still naive in their hopes that eventually it would all work out, but their idealism kept the cynicism from penetrating too deeply. Bills were due and budgets had to be balanced, but somewhere along the line their friendship made the transition from college kids to the strange variation of adulthood in which they all found themselves. The coffee grew cold and responsibilities called, but as they huddled in the cold in their goodbye circle, they knew it would be another few months before they reached out again. Life as it does, would get in the way. But they never doubted that at some point in time there would be another table, more overpriced drinks, and two brunettes, two redheads, and one almost-dirty-blonde.

Who Says

Hello, my name is Katie, and I'm a 24 year old who lives with her parents.

Don't judge me, because odds are, you are too.

A survey of Collegegrads.com found that 80% of college graduates moved home with their parents in 2008 and not just as a brief transition. College graduates are moving home and staying there, and the statistics keep rising. In 2006, CBSNews reported that 50% returned to their parents, and 44% stayed there for over a year. The numbers grew every year seemingly in a direct inverse of the economy's plummet. Perhaps one of the primary reasons is that c 70% of graduates didn't have a job lined up after college.

In hordes, we've moved home, or in my case stayed home, glued ourselves to our laptops and kept Careerbuilder and Monster open for months on end while we sent out our resumes. We began with lofty ideals and standards of what we wanted in a job; government agencies and contractors, think tanks and NGOs were all I was willing to consider. You see, I had a relevant degree in International Relations in a world at war. I was a Dean's list student. I studied at Oxford.

And then the truth came out.

So did everyone else, especially in the Washington, DC area.

Even more startling was the realization that as the economy fell farther and farther into a recession, a B.A. barely meant anything, even for entry level positions, because there were people with years of experience who were unemployed. They were willing to do anything and take low wages because it was better than the alternative of not feeding their families.
For eleven months I played this unemployment game from the safety of my family's home. I was securely tucked in my room, with my laptop, my new Explorer parked in the driveway, and my mom feeding me home cooked meals every night. I had odds and ends jobs, house sitting, temping at law firms and the circus (don't ask), babysitting, all little ways to pay the bills. But the bottom line was while it was an emotional blow to my ego, I wasn't suffering. If anything I was quite comfortable, staying up and sleeping late, lounging around in my pjs, having a wide open schedule to write and take photos all the live long day if I so chose. I'll admit, there are a lot of days when I wish I could go back to that.

Now I'm employed, in the job I initially scoffed at, and I'm still living at home. For my position and this economy I'm making good enough money. Some would argue that right now making money at all makes it good. I have a number of friends who make roughly the same as I do. They have their own tiny apartments and they live by a tight budget in order to make rent each month. For all intents and purposes it's what you're supposed to do in your twenties, embrace the lean years and put your nose down so you can make something of yourself.

Though survey says this generation's not necessarily doing that. We're moving back home and getting comfortable, and letting Mom and Dad take the sting out of the transition. Maybe we pay rent or pull our weight, perhaps we're so busy we rarely see them, and more often than not we're probably complaining about the dent it puts in our social lives. Still we stay. We let mom feed us dinner as we rush in the door from work, grab our school bags, and rush back off to class. We let our dad field the call as the insurance company calls and demands we take our car to B-F Egypt in the exact opposite direction of work, squarely in the middle of the day. We let our aunts and uncles ferret around our resume to shamelessly hand to their heavily connected friends. In short, we're letting others help, and not facing this brave new world alone. We're walking forward into uncertainty with the comforting embrace of the familiar wrapped tightly around us.

And by we, perhaps I only mean me.

I've resoundingly fallen back on the safety net of my family to make life a little easier. The alternative is daunting. Moving out and living by myself and making ends meat is a part of growing up. It's a right of passage and in an age when we don't move comfortably from our parent's arms to our spouse's embrace anymore, it's an important one that teaches us independence. Tradition dictates that through the struggle and the loneliness it helps us find ourselves.

Or maybe, just maybe, this generation is trying something new. Call us coddled or spoiled. Hell, call me that if you like. But while we're living at home and working, reveling in the creature comforts of our parents hard earned lives, we're saving. Perhaps as in my case we're putting it toward financing school without any more loans. Maybe we're putting it toward skipping the sketchy first apartment in the bad end of town.We might even be careless and reckless, blowing our money on high heels and Grey Goose.

But if there's one thing I've learned is that we'll figure it out. We'll make our way in our own way regardless of societal expectations.

We can be generation LZY.

Crash, Into Me Now

I had a strange dose of reality today. One could even say it crashed into me.

Literally.

I was driving home from work this afternoon, preparing to turn into my neighborhood when a car in the lane next to me decided it wanted to turn into me. Now personally, I don't understand how a Ford Focus can fail to see the Ford Explorer looming directly over it. But she did, we hit, and suddenly as my Explorer locked up and shook as if to say, "what the hell was that?" I was in my first accident. Not bad for seven years of driving, and at least it wasn't my fault.

The usual procedures occurred; we pulled off the highway, got out and asked if the other was hurt. It being 2009, we whipped out our cell phones and began to take pictures, as we looked at my scraped and disjointed front wheel fender. I was irrationally angry, though thankfully I didn't take it out on her. My car, my camera, ipod, laptop, and phone are my material babies. You don't touch them, and you sure as hell don't hurt them. Two months after getting my Explorer it was keyed in a parking lot by a

little kid, and the entire right side had to be repainted. Let's just say the redhead temper wasn't just a myth then.

But this time I acted like an adult, held my tongue and proceeded with dignity, and then perhaps a bit of embarrassment at my own reaction when I saw her car. It maybe, kinda, sorta got the short end of the stick. My SUV kept me safe and I barely felt a jolt, while she got sucker punched as she drove into me. To be fair though, it's one of the reasons we bought the car in the first place.

The girl was nice, she was a college student who clearly knew her way around an accident scene. We stood around in the cold and waited for the police to arrive 45 minutes later and made small talk. Both of us were a little shook up, but were none worse for the wear, and hey it was her fault, so it would be more her problem than mine. (Except for the scar on my car that I will obsess over until it can be fixed.)

So what was my grand slap with reality? Was it the touch of vulnerability as my normally speedy (though this time I was only going 10 mph) driving felt its first collision? Was is it the adrenaline rush that reminded me of my immortality? Was it the fact that if I rely on my local police to show up when they're called in an emergency, I should essentially just make my peace with God and man and kiss life good bye?

No.

It was the fact that two girls in their early-to-mid 20s first actions were to call home.

Whose first words were, "Mom/Dad I was in an accident, can you come meet me?"

And they did. My dad arrived and made sure we were okay, tracked down the wayward police, and reaffirmed what I knew I had to do. He didn't take over, but he was there, and my mom was waiting at home with dinner ready, anxious for me to walk in the door so she could hug my guts out. My sister went and found my camera and sent it with him because she knew I would want to document everything. Even my dogs fretted over me when I finally got home an hour later.

They were a safety net. A much needed one at that. And tonight I realized that while I don't know what the hell it means to be a grown-up, I've got a helluva support system to keep me afloat until then.

And that's worth almost anything.

Even my car needing plastic surgery.

We Are Living in a Material World, and I am a Material Girl

I grew up believing that a girl needs three things to get through any situation.


A Great Lip Gloss

A Set of Pearls

Black Sunglasses

And when things really get rough, sometimes you need something extra :

The Perfect Dress

Walking into a room full of your peers, strangers, VIPs, or whomever it may be, is made easier because of the confidence these staple items bestow in you. It's a touch of class and elegance that can calm your nerves and put to rest one line of worry about how you look. After all, it worked for every stylish girl's icon:



Before Sex and the City there was Holly Go Lightly, an urban girl, not far off the farm, broke and aimless. She was the original fake-it-til-you-make-it girl, and between the beaus paying her to powder her nose (awkward), to the parties her mere presense made better, nobody knew who was underneath. Nobody knew who she was beneath the glamour.

It's not healthy, but sometimes it's necessary. It's the armor we can put on to face the world, to feel like we're perservering when we don't have a clue. We can look stylish and professional even when our job is crap, school is unsatisfying, and all we can see is our life unraveling. It may be shallow, but being able to look in the mirror and see something positive can be the one ray of hope in a dark situation.

But sometimes it's more than that. Sometimes by making the extra effort in an attempt to make yourself feel better, others start treating you differently.

Maybe the women in my family were right:
Look like a lady, be treated like a lady.

My younger sister is 17, and is in the midst of finding her own style. Some of it's indie chic with cute dresses, boots and scarves. Some of it is straight out of her boyfriend's wardrobe: skin tight pants, ugly loose graphic t-shirts, a plaid shirt, Buddy Holly glasses, a pleather 80s biker jacket, and smudged eyeliner. Oh, and can't forget the Chucks. Last week the two of them went to the movies, dressed quite similarly (though thankfully he didn't have the eyeliner). They looked like hooligans, and despite being good kids, were treated as such. Management harassed them the whole time, and threw them out of the R rated movie they were seeing. They let them into Toy Story 3-D, but then threatened to call the cops because my sister had some skittles leftover in her purse.

Clearly these people were overreacting, stereotyping, and being all around jerks, but this routinely happens to these two. It doesn't matter that they're in honors and AP classes, involved in peer mentoring programs, work with animals, and go to a Catholic school. They look like punks, and they're therefore treated as such.

Why? Because we're judged on how we look. We can make a statement and damn, "The Man," but personally, I left my teenage years behind, and that's just not as satisfying as it used to be. I want to feel good about myself because my outside reflects how I want myself to be inside.

With that in mind this past week I've made an effort with my appearance. I thought maybe if I look the part of a young professional (though I maintain I always did) my boss would start treating me like one. Perhaps I wouldn't be her equal, but she'd have to see me as someone she had to behave respectfully toward, and not treat me as her lackey.

It didn't work with her.

But it did with two other people.

The head of our legal/contracts department approached me and said, "I need a project done. I need someone with a brain, who can write, and can be meticulous. You're the only one who qualifies around here." Turned out she wanted me to write/compile/edit a major government contract, and she needed it done in a week. She didn't care that I had never done anything like that before or that I was mildly terrified by the prospect. She wanted someone confident and capable enough to complete the task she didn't trust anyone else to do.

And I did. I did it in a day. Flawlessly, I might add.

Look the part, get the part....

That same night, high on my success, and rocking an adorable cardigan and a ribbon in my hair, I approached a door leading out of the Performing Arts Building on my way to class. At the same time, a co-ed in a button down, tie, and snug fleece beat me to it, opened the door, and swept out his arm to gesure me through. As I said, "Thank you," he responded with "Your welcome, have a good evening." Now maybe it had nothing to do with how cute my outfit was, perhaps he was just raised well. But it stuck out enough for me to think of it a few days later, and for that small act of kindness to make my crappy week brighter.

It made me feel like a lady.

My boss might still use a peppy voice and treat my like a second grader she's employed for slave labor.

School is still a mess I'm trying really hard to not think about.

But for now, my lip gloss, pearls, and sunglasses are helping me fake-it until I figure it out.

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

Today I am having the epitome of a quarter life crisis, all because of one email from the Office of the Registrar informing me that I could search for classes. As a graduate student I now have first pick of the classes, and can arrange my schedule to best fit me.

Except that is a complete and utter lie, since there is only one class that I can actually take in my program; tech writing, perhaps the one class I wanted to avoid the most. There are however, over ten that I could take in the Politics program. You know, that field I actually got my degree in, am actually interested in, and was actually pretty good at?

Perhaps I should start at the beginning. In the last year I've rediscovered my love of writing. I was on the newspaper all through high school, and while in college I legitimately enjoyed writing papers. I love arguing and making a point, and since my Politics and International Relations degree wasn't getting me employed in this economy, I thought I needed to switch things up a bit. Perhaps I could combine my interest in politics with a love of writing, but first I felt like I needed the piece of paper to prove that people could hire me. Visions of writing/editing for the Council of Foreign Relations danced in my head, and gleefully I sought out a program to help me get there. Journalism seemed too broad, communications made me nauseous, and then I saw that my old/local university offered a Professional Writing and Editing program. It would take a year to complete, not cost an arm and a leg (just a few fingers and toes) and I would have a piece of paper saying HIRE ME.

But then I got a job. And then it was time to register for classes. And then said job said, "We can't work with you, your schedule is 8-5 and we can't arrange for anyone to cover you to leave early for class. You need to decide what your priorities are." Right, because I'm going to choose a receptionist job over a master's program.

Except I did.

I did the "Responsible" thing, and put economic security ahead of completing my degree within a year. So perhaps it was after a three week hissy fit in which I was determined to quit and pursue my hazy, still unformed dreams. I didn't though, I scheduled the only two 7:30 classes that even remotely fit my requirements. So the semester started, I was very excited to start back at school, to learn, to read, to write again. To fall head first back into my nerdy habits of loving school.

Except I didn't.

I have fun in my blogging class, it forces me to write, and moreover it's provided me an outlet to work everything out in my head. Or at the least to accept that maybe I just have to ride it out. But my other class? It's everything I hate about academics. I haven't learned anything, I dread the class, I find it unbearably boring and even worse is it has forced me to question whether this program will actually benefit me in any way. I'm not learning to be a better writer or editor, I'm being trained to enter the academic field of rhetoric. Which let me tell you, is resoundingly not my cup of tea. If I was going to pursue a useless academic field, I would be rotting away at some tiny liberal arts school, up to my eyeballs in classical and modern philosophy texts. Instead I'm stuck for three hours a week debating the power of the technical writers, excuse me, "technical communicators." One class I finally broke down and started talking about real responsibility hierarchies in the form of the ICC and ICJ. My classmates stared blankly at me, and I went back to hiding in the corner, trying to grasp why any of this mattered.

Which was fine. If you haven't noticed, pondering irrelevant matters with no real answers is kind of my forte.

But now I have to actually find an answer. About where I'm going, what I want to do, and if I should really keep pursuing this degree, or if I should stay at the job I have. Big questions for 9 a.m.on a Friday.

Do I prolong this program even longer, and only take the one class that I don't want to take just so I can still be doing my masters? So that I can feel like I'm working toward something instead of standing still? Do I even want to stay in this program with no guarantee that I will come out with the ability to get a writing/editing job at the end of it? Or do I eat this semester's tuition money, and just switch back into Politics, into the realm of power struggles that have tangible relations to the world around us? Would any master's degree work?
Will I ever learn to write without using the Socratic method?

What about my job?(The answer is apparently not.) Do I stay at a place that refuses to work with me in any capacity? Or with a boss who micromanages my every twitch? Just today she came and reorganized my desk. A few months ago she pulled me into a one-on-one about young professionalism because I had lowered my chair since it made me hunch over the desk at that height. A thirty minute lecture because I was trying to stop my back from hurting and my neck from cramping. She told a group of people going to lunch yesterday, and who had invited me to come along, that she supposed just this once she could "grant permission" to let me go to a slightly longer than 60 minute lunch (everyone else in the office takes close to two hours). She promised to call me and let me know I had been invited, and yet for some reason my phone registered no new or missed calls. I can't go use the restroom and leave the calls on voicemail without being paranoid about being lectured. It's like a nit-picking form of guerrilla warfare and it keeps me on edge all day.

But who quits over the simple fact that their boss is a pain in the ass? I have no guarantee that I would be able to get another job, nonetheless one that allows me enough spare time to work on homework, and has a 40 minutes or under commuting time. Honestly I don't know if I have the wherewithal to have my ego bruised quite as soundly as it was in the last year of searching for jobs. Having everything you've worked for, all your good grades and gold stars be deemed irrelevant is daunting.

So now I'm at a crossroads again, with my job and my education going in two different directions, and I have to choose between them again. And I'm not even sure if either of them is worth choosing.

Or I could just yell at the English Department. Would it really kill them to offer more 7:20 classes? I know by nature of studying English or Philosophy, we have to resign ourselves to choosing our cardboard hobo box early on, but stop crushing the dreams so early. Let us enjoy a little fiscal stability at least until graduation...

I know You are but What am I?

This week I'm switching things up a bit, and letting someone else take the helm. After all, my whole reason for starting this blog was to relate my own experiences as a new college graduate with others experiencing the same thing. For my first guest blog, I asked an old friend of mine who I've known since early high school, but who haled from that other coast on the west. He went to a small liberal arts college, majored in politics, and scared the hell out of me while he studied abroad in Israel. He has since defected to the good coast (though he'd argue otherwise), and has been kind enough to take a moment to step back from his job and his ocd compulsion toward following the news, and give a brief interlude into his own thoughts.

So without further ado, I present Kevin, author of the blog, "The Partisan,"(http://www.partisansblog.blogspot.com/):

Pragmatism vs. Idealism While Coming of Age in an Era of Pragmatism vs. Idealism.

2008 was supposedly the year of hope and change. Politicians clambered onto the bandwagon for fear of falling off the face of the earth if they couldn’t adequately harness discontentment with the outgoing administration and genuine unease regarding the status quo. It was determined that nearly every aspect of industry and infrastructure needed sweeping reform and repair, and that such reform would be undertaken with new resolve and a new sense of unity.

2009, of course, has shown itself to be the year of running up the deficit like it’s going out of style (which clearly it isn’t) and/or shouting surreal incomplete sentences at town hall meeting after town hall meeting after Presidential address before Congress. Reform efforts have stalled or been forgotten. The newly-minted age of “post-partisanship” lasted half a year at best, unceremoniously smothered by ill-conceived Nazi comparisons and members of the House of Representatives formally voting to ‘express disapproval’ with one another.

A sizeable chunk of my undergraduate experience consisted of applying all things sociopolitical and socioeconomic to the beloved ‘pragmatism versus idealism’ dichotomy. Granted, at the time I cared more about passing required courses than arriving at earth-shattering realizations about the world. It also all largely took place in the freakishly homogeneous confines of a small, well-off liberal arts college (albeit in hapless Michigan). I learned to view the world’s various goings on through those goggles, nonetheless. I would consider myself to be rather idealistic, but I’ve worked to remain grounded in reality in such a way as to keep myself reasonable. Perhaps forever in conflict with the sliding scale.

So it was with great confusion that my various utopian dreams and cynical rebuttals followed me out of school in 2007 -- as happens for class after class, year after year -- and headlong into the much-vaunted ‘real world’ from which there was no escape. I arrived in a land in which jobs no longer served the purpose of occupying oneself during summer vacation (R.I.P.), and set about paying the bills.

A year or so passed, and I found myself in the aforementioned world of hope and optimism versus, at least in part, the straightforward fear of not being able to make ends meet. Like so many of my peers, I grappled with working to be an agent for positive change in the world or working until it was simply time to clock out and go home. To date, I still fall into the latter category, left to wonder whether or not to take a risk for something in which I believe and how big that risk could or should be. I question whether or not it’s even worth investing energy and emotion into a world increasingly dominated by all manner of unproductive and bitter politicking.

Then I remember that I always wanted to work for something other than mere financial stability and accomplish something greater than the bare minimum, and I arrive back at square one, left to struggle with conflicting thoughts until it’s time to get up and go back to work.

Make me a Shadowboxer baby...

I'm currently reading the book The Magicians, and there's a line in it that I had to share, because it really encapsulates how I sometimes feel about blogging. It's a form of narcissism, believing my thoughts and opinions, the trivialities of my life are somehow so important that others should read about it. In a sense, writing is a self-indulgence, the feeling of a thought bursting out from you with a dire need to be put into words and be shared with others. It can be an almost violent effect, this desire to relate and be heard, and yet we hide behind words on a page. We don't have to face the immediate response of those who read it, and in some ways it makes us more honest.

Other times, it might be healthier to force it out into reality of our day to day lives.

This quote, in a book that deals with magic and does not coexist in the realm of the internet at all, manages to poke fun at it just a little bit.It takes that need to express ourselves in some fashion and narrows it down to its lowest common denominator.

"Are you kidding? That guy was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and crudely stapled to a ticking fucking time bomb. He was either going to hit someone or start a blog. To tell you the truth I'm kind of glad he hit you."

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay Watching the Tides Roll Away...

It is a true and undeniable fact that once a week a large chunk of my paycheck will fleetingly exchange itself into bounded paper form. I don't know how to quit Borders. I'm like a junkie whose skin is crawling for the smell of paper, and even if I haven't finished my latest batch of books, I'm back trawling for more.

Yet there is another true fact about these excursions.

I can rarely find something even remotely relatable.

But that is another story, because for once I did find a book, and it just so happened to be about twentysomethings. It's called the The Last Summer (of You & Me) by Ann Brashares, who also wrote the Sister of the Traveling Pants series (that I never had an inkling to read). In her debut adult novel, she graduated with her adolescents and moved into young adults. The cover caught my eye, as it has two sisters plopped on a shoreline, and the blurbs all spoke about it being a coming of age tale and a great beach read. Well I've come of age and I'd rather be at the beach, so into my book stash it went.

And I read it. Amazingly enough I liked it. I even had a few euphoria moments of, "I can relate to this!" So like anyone from the internet obsessed generation, I'd figure I'd blog about it. Now despite the fact that I'm getting my master's in English, I'm not an English major, so this is not a literary review. There will be plot spoilers and will largely be focused on the author's handling of people on the verge of the beginning of their lives, and struggling with that new identity. Therefore if you want to be surprised, cease your reading now.

The Last Summer (of You & Me) is primarily about two sisters, Alice 21, Riley 24, and their lifelong friend Paul who is also 24. Every summer they've escaped to their family beach houses on Fire Island, a mere ferry's ride from their homes in Manhattan. Riley is the intrepid outdoorsy type whose dyslexia kept her from being the brains of the family, so she spends her summers being a life guard and her winters leading outdoor adventure groups. Alice is the classic overachieving younger sister who happens to be smarter, prettier, and desperately scared of usurping her much adored older sister. She over thinks and analyzes, and is terrified of both being left and leaving behind her sister. Then comes Paul. Best friend. Love Interest. Lost Soul. Classic Rich Bad Boy with an Attitude. He's got issues, no one understands him, Riley's his closest friend because she's his partner in crime, and more importantly she doesn't make him deal with his crap. He's also tragically in love with Alice, as she is with him, and yet neither will do anything about it out of fear. The book centers around their last summer, as they must face the decision of remaining static or growing up.

How's that for vague? I knew I couldn't write a real review, so in short it is the author's attempts at a grown up version of Peter Pan. Everything comes down to growing up and moving on, or dying. No literally. Riley, who remains a kind of perpetual child, doesn't have relationships, go to college, or have a 'real job,' dies. And you smell it coming from almost the first chapter. The author even begins with a J.M. Barrie quote, ""No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest." Once you realize that Riley is the girl who can't grow up, you see Alice and Paul in a strange dichotomy of supporting roles, while still being the main characters. It is like reading Peter Pan from the perspective of the Lost Boys. You see how much they are held back and limited by the aura of Peter Pen that draws them in to the world of just pretend. Riley, while no means as magnanimous a character, let's go of the past and ignores the future, and is content to stay exclusively within the confines of the latest adventure. No rock face is too steep nor wave too rough, and while she's fiercely loyal to Alice and Paul, she has no sense of neediness that the other two exude. While she stands still, the others are forced to avert their eyes and slow their pace so as not to surpass her. She doesn't fight against growing up, as Peter Pan did, she simply doesn't think of it. So clearly she dies.

Alice and Paul however, are the two who are actually grappling with the issue of being twentysomethings. Paul returns to Fire Island after two summers away, as jaded and desperate to belong as ever. He loves Alice. He hates Alice. He wants Alice. He wants to push her away. At every turn he is a mass of contradictions, terrified of reaching out to take what he wants from life. Everything about him is open ended. His family is absurdly wealthy, and his grandparents are fighting tooth and nail with his flake of a mother to secure his inheritance from his dead father. Therefore he hates money. He has all but a final philosophy paper to finish in order to close out his undergraduate degree, and he writes six pages every night, and then erases four. He has returned from California after failing to start an uprising among the low wage migrant field workers. He is a man-boy constantly on the cusp, and fighting it at every turn. Shockingly, he gives in, ravishes the girl, loses the girl when her sister is dying, and turns into a bitter schmuck convinced that all his bitterness was justified.

Alice is the care taker, who feels too much for those around her. Their hurt becomes hers, and despite her Ivy League law school acceptance, her inherently likability, and bright future, she willingly holds herself back to attempt to catch up with the older two. Perhaps with this character do we truly see the twentysomething struggle, as she has to define herself within her own terms, outside of her sister, and even away from Paul. All her life she had tried not to outshine her sister. She let Paul's snide remarks make her doubt her faith, her values, her life choices, even so muc as her love for him. Despite being the youngest of the three characters, she is clearly the most mature, and she is the one who makes the effort to seize the relationship she wants. And in the tradition of most literature, upon finding happiness, it is of course shattered by tragedy. The author's teen-lit background comes to the forefront, as Alice punishes herself for making love with Paul as Riley was falling ill. They are then kept apart through secrets and miscommunication, which you're well aware will work themselves out in the end.

Yet the meat of the book, comes during the fall, winter, and spring of Riley's illness. She is diagnosed with a heart disease that puts her on a transplant list, that never comes through. Here is this vital girl who lives in perpetual summer who is suddenly suffocating in holed up apartment with her parents. Alice is forced to watch as disease clips Peter Pan's proverbial wings; Riley gives up hope and has no use for a life of weakness. She refuses to tell Paul or submit to the humiliation of once again being her parent's child. Alice, as ever unable to move past Riley, moves home, defers law school, gives up Paul, and takes a job on the Central Park maintenance team, and in a hole in the wall drugstore. Every day her light dims, soon to be diminished alongside Riley. She is the healthy child living at home again, trying to maintain her independence and yet abide by the house rules. It is in this passage, that I think the experience is best captured:

"At one time, years before, Alice and Riley had made a big hole in the ceiling of their family's life and climbed out of it. Riley had enrolled in NOLS. She had spent an entire month of January in a hole in the snow. Alice had gone to college. Both of them had lived different places and met people. They'd cooked their food and washed their clothes- Riley mostly washing them in puddles in the backcountry, and Alice never separating dark from light. And now they were both back home. How quickly the hole in the ceiling grew back over their heads without even a scar to let you know it had once been open there. Healing wasn't always the best thing. Sometimes a hole was better left open. Sometimes it healed too thick and too well and left separate pieces fused and incompetent. And it was harder to reopen after that."
(pp.170-171)

How does a grown child fit their way back inside the nest they'd already left? The bed they'd outgrown, the curfews they'd dismissed, and the responsibilities they'd undertook as they'd set out on their own. More importantly, how do they ever find a way to leave it again? After the initial squeezing and jostling to fit through a jagged hole, the ease and comfort settles upon them. Big decisions can be made by someone else, meals are provided, and the terrifying real world can be put off for a little while longer. Alice settles into this routine, never thinking of or for herself as she wastes away in thankless jobs, ignoring her expensive BA from a private college. The whole world becomes a possibility when you never make the decision to step into it.

Ultimately Riley dies, slipping away without consequence while Alice works a late shift, proving that even if you stand still, the world does not. Paul sells his beach house when Alice leaves him behind, and Alice's parents choose to sell theirs now that Riley has passed. It is the end of the book, and the last summer in Neverland while Alice closes up the house. New children have moved next door, flocking to her while she prolongs her stay. She revels in the sweet innocence of childhood and teaching the next generation the tricks of island life. Predictably Paul comes and slowly they heal together in the last weekend of the summer. Without the anchor of Riley holding them back, they can leave Neverland and grow up, so hand in hand they take the last ferry of the season back to Manhattan.

The novel's ending is predictably bittersweet, as the couple gets their long awaited happily ever after. Alice has forsaken law school and is going into social work, moving out of her crappy jobs and doing something good in the world. Paul is doing grad school in Manhattan as well, and it is implied that soon they will live together, marry, and repeat the cycle of all those before them. Yet I find myself wondering if they're the ones who really won. Riley may be dead, but her ashes were thrown into the waves, to forever float among the dolphins. She may not be connected to the 'real world,' but she also won't face the mire of reality that weighed down their parents. Yes, we all must grow up and plug ourselves into the world, but must it come at the cost of everything we cherished as children? For Paul, he doubted that his love for Alice could follow him into adulthood, and it did, and he can carry it with him always. Still though, this implies that only that which can change with us can move with us throughout life. Sisterhood pacts and the beach houses that contain them must be left behind. Alice perhaps summarizes it best with one of the final passages of the book:

"So often this summer I keep thinking: I know I'm holding back. I know I'm waiting. I know I'm afraid to go forward. But I don't know how to get there from here.'... 'Sometimes I see it as a tricky mountain pass between two valleys. Other times, it's like perilous straits connecting two lands.
Partly it's the fear of the trip itself, I think, but partly it's the fear that I won't be able to get back. I'll turn around and the clouds will have settled over the mountaintop. Or the waters will have risen and shifted, there will be no way home.'....'But that's not even the real fear.'...'The real fear is that I won't want to go home.'" (p.291)

Growing up isn't just leaving home. It's Orpheus marching out of Hades and not looking back this time no matter how great the temptation. He had Eurydice by the hand, and he was taking the only thing that mattered with him. That was Paul and Alice on the last Ferry, in the last weekend, of the last summer of their childhood; moving forward with the only thing that mattered.

Because if you keep looking back and don't grow up, you get left behind.

Or you know.

You die.

But the World Don't Need Scholars as Much as I Thought..

I just came across this article from 2004 from the USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-09-30-extended-adolescence_x.htm and it almost entirely contradicts everything I said in my previous post. Now I don't mean to imply that I'm making a retraction, four couples in my immediate friend group getting married at the age of 23/24 makes my point valid. However, the article, "It's Time to Grow Up- Later," discusses twentysomethings as highly educated layabouts who put off marriage, careers, and fiscal responsibility. All of five years ago, in "trying fiscal times" (apparently I missed that suffering memo in 2004) twentysomethings were engaging in the gap period between adolescence and adulthood in an effort to not enter into a life they would later regret. The now pushing 30 year olds were fleeing off to far off lands to teach and more or less engage in an idealistic walkabout that prolonged office work and matrimony as long as possible. In my head, I'm picturing a bunch of college grads trading in their Abercrombie wardrobes and heading off in search of meaning, (Ipods still firmly in their ears) while living in a hut in some country whose name I cannot pronounce. Worldly possessions left in the keeping of mom and dad, who support their idealism, or if they're my father, wondering why he spent hordes of money on private schools, study abroad progams, and a college education.


Ok, so I'm stereotyping. And probably from the 90s with flannel shirts, Timberland knock off boots, dreads, and body odor....and a crappy van for cross country trips, a lot of hemp, and incense. Or perhaps I'm just thinking of my aunt who spent her 20s that way. All in all, I'm not feeling that this is overly representative of where we are now. Yes I can log into facebook and pick probably 20 kids off my friends list who have traveled to distant lands to teach English or minister to the sick, but to a letter all of them are doing missionary work in the process, and/or it's a part of their graduate studies programs.


This in fact leads me to what I think my point is about this article, it generally categorizes us as irresponsible idealists who are demanding to be coddled well into our twenties. Now as a 24 year old who is coddled and spoiled by mom and dad, I have to admit to a hypocrisy here. I pay my car insurance, student loans, gas, phone bill and tuition, but I do live and eat for free, which is apparently falling into one of their stereotypes. Yes, I am "saving money," but it's also really damn nice to come home from work and eat mom's cooking. However, I'm in the minority. Most of my friends are apartment dwellers, engaged, working in an office in a field not of their choice, and doing what has to be done to make ends meet. Are they debating grad school and/or in it? Yes, but in this economy it's nearly mandatory. What hope does someone with a bachelor's degree have for competing against a master's candidate and/or ten years experience? They end up doing white collar grunt work and hating their lives, but the fact of the matter is they're doing what has to be done and being responsible.

And isn't that what being an adult is about?

Taking responsibility?

Hating your life?

Going to bed at 10:30?

Talking about your job at weddings?

Not smelling bad?

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend..

It's fall and all I see is white.

White tulle, white shoes, white dresses, little bags of white rice; everywhere I look I'm surrounded by weddings, and I just turned 24 this month. I can't say I expected to be making the wedding circuit for at least another few years, but I've already been a bridesmaid once (at a few days past 23) and I'm due to be grooms-maid in March. Which coincidentally is after the wedding I have this weekend, and before the wedding I'm attending in June. And no, these aren't family relatives or older friends; none of them are any older than I am, and yet in my circle of pals, I have all of three who are single. Now I know a lot of single ladies (or Glee boys) would be chiming to have ring put on their fingers, but this phenomenon has me feeling more curious than desperate. As a group of kids who grew up when the 50% divorce rate statistic was thrown around as often as "Hit Me Baby One More Time" came on the radio, you would think we'd be a bit wary of jumping into marriage so soon after college. When you combine that with the fact that the US census has us currently at the highest age of first marriage rates in history, this seems like a strange phenomenon. Therefore, I decided to do what any 20-something would do, and hit up everyone I know, in reality and virtually, to see when they got married and why. Surprisingly, most of what I heard merely confirmed that my friends aren't freaks, and this might be a trend after all.

Growing up, I lived with two parents who just hit their twenty-five year anniversary. My mom was married previously, at the age of nineteen, and it ended as rapidly as we're told those marriages do. They were, as my aunt likes to say, "babies." She then met my father, they married when she was 26 and he was 30, had me at 28/32, and my sister at 35/39. We've got the dogs and a white picket fence, and dear God does this sound like an ad for the American Dream of life in the 'burbs. It wasn't and it's not, because behind every fence there is reality in which parents squabble, fight and act like children, money gets tight, and the dogs wreck the house. All a day in the life, right? Who wants to sign up? Apparently plenty of people, and they want to do it right now.

In my pop culture saturated mind, that means either they listened to too much Crosby Stills Nash & Young growing up, or they didn't watch enough 90s sitcoms, and are therefore giving the previous generations a middle finger salute. I can't have been the only one who remembers Ally McBeal as the young single hotshot lawyer, or the epitome of the single and allegedly loving it, Sex and the City foursome. They were thirty somethings, who were all very successful, living in great New York City apartments, and miraculously affording a Dolce and Gabanna addiction on a single income. They partied, dated, and had sex intermittently with whomever they wanted, and didn't bother settling down until they were in their late thirties. This is what those of us who had HBO in our dorms were weened on about life in the real world, and unlike the peers of those characters, it seems we're taking a pass on that lifestyle. Maybe we looked past the glittery dresses and ridiculously impractical shoes and saw the haggard lines of the lifestyle on their faces? Did we think Samantha was a bit sad for never finding a lasting relationship? Or Charolotte's desperate search for a husband was more about fulfilling society's norms than falling in love? And Carrie's nonstop critique of the ever-elusive Mr.Big only showed that she direly needed to internalize it, and take a long look at herself. Instead of role models for singledom, perhaps these were our, "What Not to Be," cautionary tales. Maybe they saw through all the independence and saw loneliness.

A good friend of mine seems to agree with that assessment, though she's ardently against young marriage. Erin provided a very well thought out quote about not being tied down in your twenties, because it's a time to be transitory, but the real meat of the matter came while idly discussing the topic:

"I think we're naive to think we're at a point in our lives where we should settle down. I think our generation is just nervous about facing the world alone without a sense of stability, which was lost post-college. I mean, jesus, my friend was married, divorced and remarried by the time she was 23. That's fucked up. Who are we to know who we're going to be in a year at this point in our lives?"

Honestly, this was more along the lines of how I thought people would feel about marriage. As I said, my parents married in 1984 in their late twenties/early thirties, my aunts on my mother's side married at thirty, and my father's sister married in her fifties. While I don't think marrying young was frowned upon, it was resolutely stated that a person's first priority is establishing him/herself independently. While no one in the family would call herself a traditional feminist, I come from very strong women, who love their husbands dearly, and whose families come first, but they know what and who they are outside of that dimension, regardless of whether they are stay at home mothers or working women. When I decided to write about this topic, I contacted my aunt, whom I affectionately deemed Gooma at a young age. She responded with a hefty answer about what she learned by waiting, which I think is full of insight and worth quoting in whole:

"This is what I learned by waiting:
1.) There is no other human being on the
earth that can "complete" me- including my spouse or my children. (to be honest, only Jesus can do that - but I suspect you won't use that in your quote). Getting married to fill a void in myself is an ingredient to failure. If I am not happy with who I am and love myself well, then I cannot and will not love another well. Time, experience and maturity is the only thing that will teach us this.
2.) Marriage should not be entered into if one has an eye on the "back
door."
3.) Marriage is NOT a spectator sport, it must be engaged and one
must give it their all and take the joys and the losses and always come back together as a team.
4.)The game is won when one learns selflessness, not
selfishness. Again - MATURITY (age and experience) does this.
5.) I do not try to change my husband, I married him as is, with no warranty, and no plans for a trade-in and think that I am a fortunate woman."

Now this is where it gets exceedingly interesting to me. She's not against marriage, she's not telling us to forsake family for our careers, or that being a contemporary woman means not settling down. Gooma's a woman who, as you can see, has deep Christian family values, but doesn't advocate rushing into them. She argues the importance of taking the time to know who we are separately before we tie ourselves to someone as an item. Personally, while I'm a rather self-assured and introspective person, my life is simultaneously in a state of stasis and change. Everything changed after college, and yet I still don't know who or what I'm supposed to be. Honestly I can't fathom knowing entirely who and what I am and want to become to balance one half of a whole. As she said, how can I complete someone else when I'm not sure If I'm complete in myself?

The answer, I have discovered through a very scientific twitter/texting/emailing poll, is simple. Love. Shocking, isn't it? People get married because they love each other? I did attempt to do some legitimate research on this topic, I even went to JSTOR, a college gal's one-stop-shop for all things peer-reviewed and official, and unsurprisingly I got very dry results. People get married because of societal norms and it is expected of them to do so. They do it for economic security, which in these trying times I think we can all see the perks of a two income household. I read in "Marriage Delayed or Marriage Forgone? New Cohort Forecasts of First Marriage for U.S. Women," by Joshua R. Goldstein and Catherine T. Kenney, which I might add was exceedingly dull, that there is speculation of a positive relation between the highly educated and marriage. The old conclusion that the more educated you are, the less likely you are to marry, is apparently falling by the wayside.

It's been deemed therefore, that fools and smart folks alike can rush in, all in the name of love. It seems all the cheesy adages have some semblance of truth in them, because resoundingly the answers I received, from a wide berth of people, is that it's pointless to wait when you "just know." It's not about being too old or too young, it's not knowing yourself and getting established, and the statistics and societal norms are just words on a page. What I resoundingly discovered for those who are married or getting married at my age, it's not a growing trend, but rather people being in love and taking a risk on it.

So Instead of summarizing some of the great quotes and stories I've received while writing this article, I'll let them speak for themselves:

Alec, age 23, engaged to be married in March:
"I was lucky enough to meet my perfect life partner in my Sophomore year of college"

J.C., age 25, married last year:
"My parents got married when they were 19 and 23 so getting married at 24 didn't seem that odd to me. I don't think age matters as long as you understand the responsibility."

Kate, age 25, married at 22:
"Love is always enough if it matters to the people who feel it."

Amber married at 19, now 22:
"Met him in Army nursing school, he got me, I got him and it just felt wrong NOT to marry him. I've known him for four years now, and up until the last year or so, it has been going pretty well.Things have been difficult with both of us being deployed and I'm hoping that come January we'll be able to figure things out. :-)"

Vanessa, engaged at 20, married at 22:
"I got engaged at 20, married at 22. We knew it would happen 3 weeks after we met. It was just right. Waited 4 years though."

Kyla 24, married last year to J.C.:
"I never planned to get married at 23 and I'm not going to lie, it can be hard at times. You have all thesebig changes- graduating college, getting a job, paying bills, moving out of your parents house, and then add on top of that becoming a wife or husband can be alot. But the good thing is no matter how stressful it gets you know you can depend on that person to help you through it and be there for you."

Sarah married at 25:
" I got married at 25, three months shy of my 26th
birthday. If he would have proposed earlier, I would have gotten married earlier. My husband and I had been together for 6 1/2 years when we got married, and had been living together for 3 years at the time. Marriage was the next step, but besides that, we had been very serious from very early on in our relationship. We always knew we would get married. I consider myself lucky that we met when we were young. In comparison to many people we knew, we waited late. We saw a lot of our friends rush to get married young, only to end in divorce within a year, so I think that is one of the reasons we waited so long."

Tamora, married at 23:
"When the right one comes along, and you are both
certain of your feelings and commitment, you don't put it off."

For all my ranting about finding out who I and what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, seeing everyone listed, who may not necessarily know any better than I do, find happiness, is uplifting. It's not a Disney fairy tale or a 90s television show telling me how to be, but rather a bit of proof that we don't always have to be put together, or to quote my high school's motto, "know who you are and be that well" (St.Francis of Assisi if you're wondering). I may not know what it means to be a grown-up, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.Maybe getting married early is just a way to deal with the confusion through the support of someone else. Maybe it's finding your soul mate/life partner/significant other/that jerk who doesn't do their dishes. Maybe it's a financial move or succumbing to societal pressure. Maybe trying to analyze this through an age lens is pointless.

Maybe love is the answer.

Or maybe I should stop thinking about it and go splurge on an obscenely over-priced dress and shoes I can't afford, and enjoy the wedding circuit.

Afterall, it worked for the Sex and the City gals...

Truth is I'm Lying Again

Ok, perhaps I lied when I said I wasn't bitter about my job.

As much as I tell myself I should be thankful for being employed, making good (re: just above a cardboard box in DC) wages, and having enough free time at it to be able to do homework, it's all just a facade. Every time I think about doing this for months upon years on end, a little piece of my soul dies, and angels cry/laugh for/at me. Day in and day out I answer phones in an effervescently perky tone exuding exclamation points and helpfulness. Southern mama or not, I don't do perky or helpful all that well. You'd be amazed at my ability to throw a three course dinner party and still serve it with side of snark. So to spend forty hours a week feigning a whole other personality that I lack in every way can be trying, and visions of the displaced children of Uganda just make me feel guilty, not gracious.

Now I have to ask myself, how did I get here? I've spent my whole life preparing for the next step, and believe me when I say I never thought it would be shuffling invoices, inventorying keys, and saying "Good morning, how may I help you?" a thousand times a day. I was the sixth grader stressing out about my grades because junior high grades determine which high school you get into (Catholic School world guys, not public). I was the eigth grader who got into her high school of choice freaking out over if that one "B" in English would keep me out of honors programs. I was the high schooler who had panic attacks over colleges as a sophomore. And I was the college student who went absolutely insane when Latin looked like it might delay my graduation. I've been preparing my whole life for the next step, and here I am and I don't know what it's supposed to be anymore. I don't have a career, I have a really lame job that I tell myself is just a stepping stone, but is it really? Is this what all my education and paranoia has led up to? Bottoming out in mediocrity?

Right now I'm starting grad school under the guise of taking me some place else, somewhere in which I'm challenged and I matter. Where I can be a special unique snowflake before it becomes a big mushy mass of mud with everyone else. I'm holding out hope and shelling out the money for it all aiming for that next step to something better.

But the truth is?

I think I'm lying again.

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell...

This week heralded the return to a bustling campus, rampant parking atrocities, shockingly full classrooms, and school supplies. Yes, after a year away I have returned to school to get my masters. On the Ides of March this past year, I quite literally awoke and said, "I'm bored, it's time to go back." Therefore I perused some programs, picked Professional Writing and Rhetoric, something all together different from my undergraduate program, and threw together an application in two weeks. A few weeks later I had an acceptance letter, and not even a full week after that, I had a full time job to put a cramp on things.

Was it a dream job doing analysis work in the international relations field? Did I get an 'in' at a DC think tank, so that I could dally in political theory all the live-long day? Was it even an admin position in a government contracting firm that I could use to make my way up the ladder? No. I'm a receptionist.

A dean's list, studied abroad at Oxford...receptionist.

Am I bitter? Only slightly.

Did I grow up dreaming about answering phones and greeting folks? Not particularly. However, it's easy, the commute is short, and I can read books and chat with friends all day. All in all, not a horrible job, especially in this economy.

But am I living up to my potential?

I've got a job. I've started on the track to get my masters in a pragmatic field. I started writing creatively, something I have never done, and dear God did it terrify me. I enjoy photography and have a good enough camera to make it into a hobby. I love my family, and I've got a solid group of friends.

Why then do I still feel like I'm not living it right?